292 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



fully and wonderfully made." Look at the dyspeptic Goshawk 

 which with a broken bill does duty for Steatornis caripensis, — the 

 ragged urchin, with feathers on end, who passes for a Cat-bird, 

 suggesting some association of ideas between the Cat and a hostile 

 Dog, — the two distorted British Fly-catchers, the lower specimen 

 with its hump-back, and its upturned throat presented to some 

 sacrificial knife (a monstrosity simply unpardonable in the case 

 of so familiar a favourite), — the Norfolk Plover without a neck, — 

 the Pratincole represented as cooling its feet in a stream (!), 

 or the Scissor-bill misfitted with a Puffin's head, as illustra- 

 tions of what we mean. One cannot even turn over the pages 

 of our old favourite Bewick without a regret that he had not in 

 every instance that knowledge of the living bird which, not- 

 withstanding all the advances in the art of engraving, has 

 preserved to this day the charm of his life-like lines whenever 

 he drew from nature. Had he but once seen the Bittern 

 booming in the marsh, Bewick could never have depicted 

 that horizontal-backed bird whose tradition is carefully pre- 

 served in half the museums of England. 



Such works as the modest and unpretending, though careful 

 and laborious, plates of Mrs. Blackburn are invaluable in dif- 

 fusing a truer knowledge of the attitude and character of the 

 living bird than can be otherwise obtained by the multitudes 

 who never have the happy chance of looking into a Heron's 

 nest, or watching a flock of Gannets on their fishing-ground. 

 A glance at her volume tells at once that all is from life. Wisely 

 has the lady-artist "refused,^' as she tells us in her preface, "to 

 be guided by stuffed specimens, in the belief that drawings 

 y-ealhj from nature (and such only) may be made to give a 

 representation of nature more faithful in most essential points 

 than the stuffed skin itself, even when newly set up by the most 

 skilful workman, and of course in a higher degree preferable to 

 an idealized copy of the usual faded and withered denizen of a 

 glass case." The work includes twenty-three plates, many of 

 them spirited drawings of our commoner birds, but some of 

 them such as southern dwellers in cities seldom have an 

 opportunity of observing in a wild state. A few lines of letter- 

 press explain the circumstances under which each was sketched. 



